The Helpful Gardener
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Living By Bread Alone

We have discussed my appreciation of Vandana Shiva and her work in India trying to recover the damages of the Green Revolution; it seems paralleled by F-san's decrying of Western methods. Our diet in the West is creating a health crisis of obesity, not to mention the other health risks we are starting to catalogue, and yet we still seem hell bent on distributing this madness to the rest of the world...

Sensei gives some clear direction as to why this is wrong...

HG

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rainbowgardener
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I can't give any real science for it, but I can "testify" that I love it since I've been eating more local grown/ with the seasons. Not only do we eat wonderfully all through the growing season and everything is delicious, it just feels "right." I feel more in harmony with the world. I don't get tired of eating lots of sweet corn in the summer, because by the time corn ripens I haven't had any fresh corn for months, so it is such a treat. And so with broccoli, etc. I haven't had any broccoli now since the broccoli in the garden finished.

If my seeds for fall planting had sprouted we'd be about to eat broccoli again (yay!), but it was too hot and dry.

Still wish I could find locally grown frozen veggies for winter.

Do you know Ornish's cookbook "Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish?" The recipes are arranged by season, so you are cooking with what is in season. It is all heart healthy low-fat (vegetarian) based on fresh veggies, whole grains, etc. One of my favorites of my shelf of cookbooks.

Toil
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man, I don't know... a good bread is just... heaven! F-san loses me here. good bread is worth collecting in the freezer. rinse it with water and bake. it's just the thing with a squash and bean and corn soup!

and sweet corn... that is the bread of corn, not at all corn as nature intended. but it's delicious and the least of my dietary worries.

I think to get back to nature in north america, what we really need is to fall in love with beans and squash again.

or maybe it's best not to think too much...

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MAybe toil...

But I think you are right as well; this is a regional question. Rice and barley is not a good fit everywhere and there are places where wheat and corn and other grains make fine sense. The tools we choose to complete our work have a huge impact on the final product; as Emilia Hazelip found, Sensei's edicts had little meaning in France. She had to develop her own style for a drier, more temperate climate, and so do most of us...

I do not think we can ever talk in absolutes in finding our natural gardens. We must each attune to our place and the creatures and plants that reside there, and proceed in a fashion that values as many as we can account for. I believe native plants have a huge valule there as most common denominators, and native food packages are integrally sound places to start from...

And I like my bread too, just don't know if my own wheat is worth my space. Opinions?

HG

muland
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I love to eat food that is in season...a lot of it. When tomatoes are abundant, for example, I find myself eating them all the time. Corn, asparagus, summer squash all the same. And the vegetables and fruits that are in season are the ones that are on sale in the markets. I don't remember Fukuoka's feeling about bread so well, but if the grain was grown locally I'm sure he would have no problem with it. It's just that bread is not part of the traditional Japanese diet.

I've read that you don't really need that much space to grow grain for the household. Gene Logsden apparently has the best book out there on the subject. I forget the title, something like "Growing Grain on a Small Scale." Threshing the grain is a bit of a problem, though.

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applestar
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Threshing and winnowing is where I'm hitting a road bump as well. I turned to the Little House books to see how they did it back then, and even in Farmer Boy, they had a hand cranked winnower ... Or they used a frail with the grain spread out on the *Big South Barn* floor :roll:. Laura's father depended on traveling threshing machine powered by horses hitched to a mill that was used co-operatively with neighbors. I came across an old gas powered machine in a old auction list for Walnut Acres when it was sold (and found out what happened to what used to be my favorite organic foods farm/company in the process) and a video of a gas powered winnower being used to sort worms from worm compost.

How did you thresh/winnow the rice?

I agree it's important to remember that locally adapted crops are the key. American wheat wasn't, for Fukuoka. That and getting the most production naturally -- and year round -- from your garden. But to do so you need to learn how your garden lives and breathes. And getting to know that with grace and acceptance rather than "beating it over the head" and "whipping it into shape"... THAT is the ultimate key. :wink:

muland
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There is a YouTube video of a fellow named Brian Kerkvliet from Bellingham, WA demonstrating a home-made threshing "devise" he thought of using a chain on a hand drill and a 5-gal bucket. It's pretty interesting. Sorry I'm not nerdy enough to be able to post a link for you, but here's how to find it:

Either go to YouTube and search for Brian Kerkvliet, then find the video (it was the third one when I tried it),

Or go to permies.com then to "videos by Paul Wheaton", then find it on the list.

Some small-scale growers in the Willamette Valley here in Oregon have gone in on a small thresher which is carted from farm to farm as needed. :)

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applestar
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Thanks! I'll look for the videos, etc. I think the innovations are/were there. We, as modern small-scale farmers/gardeners are needing to re-discover/invent it. :roll:

When I was looking for how they do it in Japan, I remember seeing a photo of a boy working a rocking foot-pedal operated (like old sewing machines) thresher for rice. 8)

Going back to those Little House books for a minute, Laura's father, a pioneer with "only" 3 daughters (a boy child died as a baby, though it's not mentioned in the series) was delighted by the traveling threshing machine. Laura helped with the chores even though it was "improper" for her to do so, but only under extreme circumstances. Almanzo's father, on the other hand, had a large well-established farm and was also a logger, with a large variety and number of stock animals -- horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, etc. as well as milk cows and chickens. He disliked the new-fangled gadget, calling it a lazy man's tool, because it wasted grain and mangled the straw, making it useless for the animals to use (as feed? as bedding? I can't remember). He had Almanzo and his older brother Royal to help thresh the grain using the hand-made flails. (Can you tell I love these stories? :wink:)

Toil
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hey, you guys made me realize I now have access to a tidal river where wild rice is native... I wonder how hard it would be to encourage it and get a decent harvest? I have access to a canoe perfect for the job.

Yeah, it's a grass not a grain, but it fills the niche (and is awesome deep fried).

F-san would be proud (probably not about the frying tho)!

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Toil, I camp once a year on Selden Island; a traditional native camping and ricing spot on the Connecticut River. Zizia, or wild rice, needs slow moving water. I have gotten a pound in the bottom of a kayak without really trying...

Larry is so right; I too find it hard to tire of seasonal food (although I am mostly done with corn now). Maters still rolling in and salsa fresca rules the day...

I too have heard rumor of this small plot grain thing, but remain wholly ignorant, although welcoming of instruction...

In my version of OSR there is a pedalled thresher in a pic on page 50... Very cool... 8)

HG

muland
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I know. The foot-powered thresher. I've seen it and used it but it's one of those things that has been tossed to the side of the road in Japan. It wouldn't be all that difficult to build. All it is is a rotating drum with pegs in it.

I few other thoughts. Wild rice is grown commercially in Oregon's Willamette Valley. I met a grower at the Portland Farmers Market last year. Let's see...the website is www.oregonwildrice.com and www.freddyguys.com

As for fried food, Fukuoka has nothing against fried food. Fried vegetables were a staple on the mountain in the orchard. Greasy? yes. Delicious? Also yes. :lol:

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Jardin du Fort
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Yeah, I know I'm coming in way late on this thread, but tough.

I believe John Jeavons promotes growing grains on a home-garden or perhaps homestead scale. It's been a while since I read "Growing More Food Than You...." ((30 years???)) but as I recall, the principle is perhaps not to grow those grains that are commonly locally available (wheat?) but rather those that are more rare (exotic) not because of any fault of their own other than the propensity of the American Food Industry to make everything with wheat. Buckwheat, barley, oats, etc. are viable options for a small scale home patch. Some, such as winter grains, can be grown during a "dormant" season of the garden if your climate permits.

Isn't this the chapter where Fukuoka discusses eating crops in season? (I know, he mentions it in a few places...) I wonder then if there is any good reason to try to grow tomatoes inside in the middle of winter, other than the "I can beat nature at its own game" thing. The concept of seasonal variation in the diet being a natural part of God's plan, and actually being GOOD for us is, although perhaps outside our modern desires, not outside the normal for much of the rest of the world, and for most of world history, for ALL of the world.

When I graduated from high school, I was given a book that had a chapter on eating weeds. It gave a fairly extensive list of naturally occurring plants that are edible, but are not usually considered food. Unfortunately I no longer have that book, or remember it's name, but apparently the concept of using nature's bounty for sustenance has been around far longer than our thinking allows. As I recall, burdock, lambs quarters, milkweed, and dandelion were on the list with a few more that I forget.....

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rainbowgardener
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Euell Gibbons' books (Stalking the Wild Asparagus and others) are the classics on foraging and eating weeds. He was publishing in the 1960's and was one of the founder of the current wild eating movement.

One of my directions is to work on using more of what my little one third of an acre produces, including eating the weeds. Don't forget purslane, to me one of the tastiest of the edible weeds. I also am trying to use more of my mulberries and black walnuts, to make wine/syrup/jellies from the lilac blossoms, etc. I made chrysanthemum flower jelly last year. The problem gets to be what to do with it all -- I made more jellies than I could succeed in giving away. :) :)

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I was wandering around and picked up on this thread. It is an interesting if not challenging concept to grow most all (we use) locally, and also look at foodways and the history of foods. So as not to hijack this thread, opening up on Elsewhere (?).



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